The structure of a real linear combination of two projections

Let P and Q be projections on a Hilbert space with range \({\mathcal M}\) and \({\mathcal N}\) respectively. The paper concerns with the Hermitian operator \(aP+bQ\) for real a and b. P and Q are said to be in generic position if \[ {\mathcal M}\cap {\mathcal N}={\mathcal M}\cap {\mathcal N}^{\perp}={\mathcal M}^{\perp}\cap {\mathcal N}={\mathcal M}^{\perp}\cap {\mathcal N}^{\perp}=\{0\}. \] Main result of the paper is the following: A Hermitian operator A can be expressed as \(A=aP+bQ\) with P, Q in generic position and nonzero real a,b if and only if for some real c, A-cI and - (A-cI) are unitary equivalent and either \(0<| A-cI| <| c| I\) or \(| c| I<| A-cI|\) occurs. In this case, A is unitarily equivalent to \[ \left[ \begin{matrix} (a+b)I_{{\mathcal M}}+C^{1/2}\\ 0\end{matrix} \begin{matrix} 0\\ (a+b)I_{{\mathcal M}}-C^{1/2}\end{matrix} \right], \] where \(C=\frac{1}{4}(a-b)^ 2I_{{\mathcal M}}+abPQ|_{{\mathcal M}}.\) As a corollary the spectrum of \(aP+bQ\) is given by \[ \sigma (aP+bQ)=\{(a+b)\pm \sqrt{(a-b)^ 2+4abt};\quad t\in \sigma (PQ|_{{\mathcal M}})\}. \]

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